Back on Monday
by Little-Firestar84
Summary: She is back on Monday- and on that same day, their love is born too. Once again. Audrey/Nathan, spoiler for 4.1


The beautiful premeire needed something, and this si for me. Hope you'll appreciate the effort, and also my crazy theories. I want to warn you that, unless you missed 4.1, there are no spoiler here-my promise for this season is to not read anything about any tv show :)

* * *

She comes back on a Monday - just like Solomon Grundy in that creepy song - and that's when Duke's heart stops beating.

It's not just seeing her leaving that old-fashioned Chevy, different and yet the same as she has always been.

No. What stops Duke's heart is understanding that Nathan was-is- right.

He sees it with his own two eyes- only an idiot wouldn't. The moment her eyes fall on Nathan, she is a goner. It's love at first sight, or maybe it's so much more. He knows all about love at first sight - the ladies can be his witnesses- but what Nathan has going on with this woman... they are soul-mates, star-crossed lovers as he has never seen before.

(And when you live in Haven, you see a lot.)

So, yes, the moment Audrey- Lexie- sees Nathan, Dukes knows that his frenemy (if he is allowed to call him that) was -is- right.

He is the one she loves the most, simply because she loves him every time. She is falling for him right now, just like Audrey slowly did and Sarah too before her, even if in just a day.

(And he is sure that, were they to come back in time again, to a day she was there but not as Audrey, Sarah or Lexie, she would fall in love with Nathan too, again and again and again).

Salomon Grundy was born on a Monday. Just like Lexie's love for Nathan.

* * *

William is a strange fella, but Duke understands he means no harm- and that he isn't interested in Lexie-or better yet, he is, just not like that.

(And frankly, he can't understand why. Everybody who meets Audrey/Sarah/Lexie/etc. seems to fall in love with her. But not William.)

The guy keeps looking strangely at Lexie and Nathan, mostly from afar, always when he thinks people doesn't see. Sometimes it's like he giggles, others he seems to sigh, but he stares at them with a faraway gaze, like he knows some kind of secret nobody is aware of just yet.

(Which is not so hard to believe, it's Haven, after all.)

It's a Tuesday when William is looking from afar, yet again, to Lexie and Nathan talking on the seaside, and Duke could swear the man actually cries when, tentatively, Lexie kisses Nathan for the first time- a kiss that it's soon followed by another, initiated by Nathan, and then they are smiling at each other, walking on the seaside holding hands like two teenagers in love for the first time.

It's a bit like in the Solomon Grundy song: their love is christened on a Tuesday, in the most innocent, purest way, with a tentative first a kiss.

* * *

Wade is renting the apartment on top of the Gull - Duke doesn't even want to know why his dearest brother prefers to live in the "city", as he calls the center of Haven - and it's only natural (or so they think) that Lexie takes it. At first, they think about moving Audrey's things somewhere else, but Lexie finds out about their plan, and she stops them. By now, it's not like she doesn't know about her past self (selves), and maybe having Audrey's things around could help her out, jog her memory furthermore in some way.

(Nathan's presence seems to have already had some kind of effect on her.)

Besides, it also gives her an excuse to actually stay on her own for a short while: Lexie welcomes the privacy, something she hasn't felt since she has met William in that bar few months before- and to her, it feels like an eternity.

When she moves in on her own, Lexie wants the privacy, and yet she wants Nathan to stay there with her. Duke knows that, when she asks, it's with the most innocent intentions- she just wants to hear about Sarah and Audrey, to feel his comforting presence at her side - but Duke isn't an idiot, nor born yesterday.

(Besides, it's been months since Lexie kissed Nathan for the first time, and nothing has happened ever since, and it's just a natural thing.)

The next day, when he goes to the apartment to ask Lexie if she needs anything, he opens the door and there he stops, as their clothes are still there.

Solomon Grundy got married on Wednesday, and they did too, even if just in body.

* * *

It's a Thursday when someone from the guard- probably Nathan's lovely ex - tells Lexie that she has to kill Nathan if she doesn't want to die first.

They don't know exactly what happened, or how, but suddenly Lexie is storming inside the Police Station, walking past everyone, facing William and Nathan and demanding an explanation.

William stays silent, but his eyes, his look, say that he knows all about it but simply he doesn't know where to start, but Nathan is another thing. Dukes doesn't know what Nathan tells Lexie as he walks her into his old office, and yet he knows it all too well: Nathan still feels guilty for what had happened with the troubles, and he wants to make amend.

(If he was a martyr before, Duke really doesn't know how to call him right now).

He doesn't need to be there with them to hear Nathan explain to the love of his life that he has to die, and that she has to be the one doing it- and mostly, why she has to do it, and why he isn't going to fight neither her or fate or the right thing to do, the only available option.

When she leaves, Lexie is shaking her head, fighting back the tears, and Nathan doesn't talk with anyone for the rest of the day.

(But at least, he doesn't drown his sorrow in alcohol.)

Just like for Solomon Grundy who got ill on a Thursday, things go south for them on that very same day.

* * *

It's a Friday when Duke realizes that things aren't going well between his two friends. For a couple of weeks Lexie and Nathan have avoided each other - it's mostly her doing, though- but on that particular day the former chief decides to face once and for all Lexie, to make her understand that there are things she can't fix, as much as they want her to.

Things seem to not go as planned, and Duke can hear them scream and from the noises he is pretty sure that Lexie just broke every breakable thing in the apartment too. Afterward, she runs outside without saying anything to him or William (who's always there at the bar) and she isn't ashamed any longer of her tears.

When he joins Nathan in the apartment, he is hitting the wall with his bare, bleeding fists, and he is crying too, because just because simply has to be that way, it doesn't mean they have to like it. But this time, they'll have to accept it if they want to save Haven and remedy to their past mistakes.

Lexie and Nathan love each other, just like Sarah and Nathan did and like Audrey and Nathan did too. And yet, as much as they want to be together, as much as they want to believe in happily ever after, they know they'll never have it. Nathan has already accepted it - he is the martyr of every one of their stories, after all - but Lexie can't. And knowing this just drove her away.

From the window, Duke sees Lexie crying in William's shirt, and he seems as hurt and devastated as much as she does.

She moves in with him the same day, and they don't meet each other, if not for troubled-related issues, for weeks.

Things definitely get worse on a Friday. Just like for old pal Solomon.

* * *

Lexie fires a weapon at Nathan on a sunny summer Saturday.

It's July, and a long time before, in Haven, it was the best time of the year, but not now. Things had gone south after the barn's destruction, but now, over an year later, it's even worse. Troubles are manifesting all over town, to the extreme, people who has been "cured" regains their lost abilities, manifesting them at a level never seen before. It can feel like the end of the world, and it surely will be the end of Haven if they don't do something sooner or later. They have to act, quickly, and they know what has to be done. Despite not liking it. Despite not wanting it. Because, frankly, it's not right.

(Unfortunately, with the barn gone, it's also the only thing left to do.)

Nathan doesn't think about it, nor act with finesse. He knows that asking Lexie to kill him will not work. She has never been that kind of person, and she still loves him too much. And yet, he needs her to kill him if he wants to bring peace to his town - and if he wants for them to have a chance, someday, somewhere else, maybe.

He storms into William's place when he knows she is alone, and he attacks her. He hates it, and he is crying the whole time she struggles, and yet he needs her to kill him, and this is the only way.

(He just hopes she'll not hate him.)

Despite knowing that hitting him is useless, she still tries to, and when everything fails, when she is scared for her -her life, her sanity, her body and soul - she grabs his gun, and fires one, two, three times at the man on top of her, crying as he collapses on the ground, his shirt a symphony of blood.

She calls William and Duke, and they call Dwight and the brothers, and when they arrive Lexie is still crying, on her knees at Nathan's side. He is still alive, barely, and he still has the energy to hold her hand and never let it go.

He asks them to bring him to die where everything has started, and when he gives his last breath, he is on the ground, right where the barn used to be, and it's a minute to midnight.

It's still Saturday when, like Solomon Grundy, Nathan dies.

* * *

One minute later, it's Sunday, and the barn, long thought destroyed, reappears - or maybe it's a new, different one, same old, same new, and all that jazz.

At this point, Lexie knows it all about the past, the troubles, and the barn too, so she immediately understands what's standing right before her eyes. And she knows it's her only chance of making it right. The troubles should be gone by now, but Nathan is lost too, and she doesn't want to live without him. She feels like she has no life left. What's her use right now, after all? The troubles are gone, and her only other reason to stay alive, to make a sense out of her existence, is gone too. Frankly, she doesn't want to keep living.

Duke's eyes fall on William, and as the older man looks at the couple on the soil, he notices something. He wonders how he didn't see it sooner, because he recognizes those eyes. They belong to William, and yet they don't. They are the eyes of someone else, too. Someone who's not any longer. Those eyes, they were Nathan's, and suddenly everything makes some kind of twisted sense.

Lexie appeared shortly after the barn had been destroyed. It took him six months to make it out, in Boston. But James... he appeared few years after the first time he entered the barn. And now, here he is, not a twenty-something years old any longer but a man of forty-something who goes by the name William.

William kneels on the ground at Lexie's side, right before Nathan's now cold body. He tells something to the woman, whispering the words in her ear, and, still crying, she nods, hugging him and wetting his shirt with her tears just like she had done few months before outside the bar.

William takes Nathan's remains in his arms, and he walks toward the barn, Lexie at his arm; they stop once reached the door, and they turn, saying goodbye with just a nod of their heads, and as much Duke would like to stop them, he knows he can't, because it's not the right thing to do-nor his decision.

It's a Sunday when the door to the barn closes at their back, the structure vanishing in thin air like it had never been there to begin with, and it feels too much like a funeral- just like Solomon Grundy's, buried on a Sunday.

It's the end, and it's heart-breaking, but yet, it feels like a new beginning, full of wonders and opportunities.

* * *

...and if there is something that Duke learnt from living in Haven as long as he did, it's that nothing lasts forever. And in fact, one day, long after he and Jen started turning grey together, at his son's bar he spots a couple in their early thirties, a lovely blonde and a guy with light brown hair and blue eyes, and a newborn baby boy- their child.

This time it's with a smile that he finally admits that Nathan has always been right: he was the one she loved the most, like she was the one he loved the most. They were star-crossed lovers, they always have been, they still are.

And they finally got their happily ever after. At long last.


End file.
